The 15-Minute Stop What You’re Doing Seasonal Survival Rule

Would you agree this time of year has its challenges? The kind that require some solid strategies for seasonal survival?

I’m a big fan of simple rules.

Not the kind that run your life or anyone else’s. Rather the kind that help make important things easier to actually do.

One of those rules is this…

Big accomplishments can happen fifteen-minutes at a time when performed consistently over time. For example, if you read for just fifteen minutes a day, you can finish twelve average length books each year. Who knew?

Seasonal survival is no different.

Like I said, that’s an example, I’ll be sharing the real rule with you in a moment… but first, let’s set the stage by looking at the make-up of this wonderful, yet challenging time of year—

• Beginning with Halloween, our schedules begin to tighten with more and more activities. It had never occurred to me until recently when I overheard someone say the holidays actually begin with those Tricks and Treats.
• Then, additional obligations and social events tend pick up which lead to more planning, preparing and spending.
• We have more to do in general while at the same time, most of us have more work at work because of the corporate year-end insanity of trying to cram it all in by the end of the year.
• Except for the most resilient among us, this all equates to far more stress than usual.
• Self-care begins to wane as we attempt to force all the puzzle pieces together to fit some semblance of the happy picture we imagine in our heads.
• Then what happens? Longer hours, less sleep, less exercise, faster food, more this, more that, more and more compromises… the list goes on and on.

Now hold that stressful feeling while we rewind to that fateful first Sunday morning in November. You know, where some brilliant mind back in history came up with the scheme to totally jack around with our circadian rhythms twice a year.

I’m talking about the evil time change—the beloved Daylight Saving Time!

Now, the rule I hinted about above holds a strategy I’ve found to be surprisingly helpful in dealing with all this seasonal mayhem. Bear with me just a bit longer while I build my case.

Yes, I could tell you now and your reaction would most like be, “Pffftttt! That’s it? That’s bogus.”

But here’s the thing… I’ve asked a lot of people if they’re affected by the season and no one has said to me,

Meh, no problem. Not me.”

This includes one of the toughest guys I know who’s a special forces vet. If he can admit to it, I think we can too.

When you shorten the days, replace the blue skies with the grey, stack on the stress because of the aforementioned, plus more… it can take a toll on the best of us.

For me, I’ve known that I’ve been affected by it for some time. Probably shortly after I moved away from Colorado where they enjoy over 300 sunny days every year.

So, I won’t hold out on you any longer…

The rule (or strategy, if you don’t like rules) for seasonal survival is this…

Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, when the sun comes out, drop what you’re doing and go outside and soak up some rays for fifteen minutes.

That’s it. I told you it was simple, but you’ve got to do it. Yes, do it on the sunny days too. But when you’re socked-in and faced with a stretch of grey, you’ve got to get those rays when you can.

If you follow this rule consistently throughout the winter months, you’ll be amazed how much better this simple strategy will help you feel.

I discovered this strategy several years ago after realizing that I tend to have a funk that sets in starting around November. My theory is, of course, the shorter days of the year combined with sometimes long stretches of grey skies trigger it. 

But the time change which suddenly vaporizes the last hour of daylight in our already shorter days puts the effect on steroids.

And it seems to happen all at once.

Here’s the key… You’ve got to act whenever the sunbeams break through the clouds. Sunbeams can be fleeting during the winter and they don’t hang around for long.

When I was first building this habit, I missed a lot of opportunities because I’d think to myself… “I’ll just finish this one thing.” You’ve got to jump on it. It’s just fifteen minutes after all.

Now go catch some rays!

Oh, and be untucked.

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Copyright © 2019 Jeff Meister